Production and trade in nuts for dietary use is a huge global industry. Nuts are used worldwide in large amounts by confectioners, cereal manufacturers, ice cream manufacturers, snack food manufacturers, bakers, chefs, cooks, and so forth. Consumption of snack foods is particularly high in the United States, with snack nuts alone accounting for approximately 7 percent of the total snack retail dollar sales, as reported in 1996. Johnson, D., Fruit Trees and Tree Nuts Situation and Outlook, Economic Res. Srv., USDA, Aug. 1997, pp. 35-41. Sales of snack nuts and seeds by the U.S. snack food industry in 1998 exceeded four billion dollars and represented approximately 20 percent of the total dollar value of all U.S. exports of snack foods for that year. U.S. Industry and Trade Outlook® 2000, National Technical Information Service & U.S. Dept. of Commerce, “Processed Foods and Beverages”, The McGraw-Hill Companies, Ind., 35-1 to 35-17, 2000.
An important trend in the U.S. snack industry is to promote reduced-fat content snack foods., However, consumers generally tend to be resistant to reduced-fat or non-fat content snack foods since such product noticeably sacrifice the normal taste and other sensory attributes to which consumers have grown accustomed for that type of snack food product. Consequently, natural unprocessed foods, such as natural nuts, still have been widely used in various snack foods.
Natural nuts are an excellent source of dietary protein and fiber. Unfortunately, many popular natural nuts also are relatively high in fat content. Moreover, the price of many natural nuts has been subject to escalation, due in part to lower availability of certain popular types of nuts when a primary grower nation of that type of nut or nuts experiences a poor growing season due to bad weather, blight, and so forth. In addition, the processing of certain commercially valuable nuts like cashews requires expensive skin peeling machinery or labor intensive work. Therefore, a substitute snack product for natural nuts would have a significant market value if it was healthier and less costly to obtain while still maintaining the taste and other savory attributes normally associated with natural nuts.
Prior attempts have been made to prepare simulated nutmeats. U.S. Pat. No. 3,719,497 describes a process for making a simulated nutmeat prepared by forming a homogenous dispersion composed of minute droplets of fat or oil suspended in a continuous phase comprising an edible hydrophilic film-former and water (e.g., such as an aqueous protein suspension). The film former is described as nonfat milk solids, sodium caseinate, soy protein, egg albumen, egg yolk, wheat germ, gelatin, pea flour, bean flour, corn germ, dried whey, gelatinized starch, fish protein, bran protein, gum arabic, and other hydrophilic colloids such as carboxy-methyl cellulose. Powdered sugar can be included in the oil, fat, or film-former. The dispersion is atomized and dried to form particles composed of an oleaginous internal phase encapsulated within the protein film, which is pressed to form a self-supporting structure having a shape of natural nutmeat or ribbed patterns. The fat or oil is exemplified as hydrogenated vegetable shortening or oil used in major amounts, and the film-former is exemplified as isolated soy protein used in minor amounts of 10 percent or less, to which water is added to form an aqueous dispersion for film formation.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,229 also describes a food composition having a nut-like texture made by forming a homogenous dispersion composed of minute droplets of fat or oil, such as 10-80 percent oleaginous substance consisting of any type of vegetable or animal oil or fat mixture thereof, suspended in a continuous phase composed of a hydrophilic film-former and water, but in which the suspension is mixed under gas excluding conditions or in a filled, closed vessel and forming a dispersion that is extruded into a ribbon and optionally cut to resemble cut-up nutmeats. Powdered sugar can be included in the oil, fat, or film-former.
U.S. Pat. No. 2,952,544 describes nut-like food products made as crisp cellular structures with isolated oil or fat particles filling the voids or cells therein, in which vegetable oil of fat is combined with a film-forming substance, such as albumen, gelatin, agar, soy protein, wheat germ, wheat protein, and milk solids, and water, and the resulting dispersion is sheeted-out.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,872,230 describes a method for producing food compositions having a nut-like texture prepared by forming a homogenous dispersion comprising a continuous phase composed of a hydrophilic film-former and water, such as an aqueous protein suspension, in which the dispersion is mixed under vacuum and then shaped and dried.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,084,013 describes a continuous process for forming simulated nut-like food products comprising a mixture of fat, film former, and water by providing a mixing vessel or a plurality of vessels which include mixing zone portions distributed along the flow path of the material being prepared with one or more fluid inlets between the portions of the mixer.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,270,064 describes an encapsulated food product encompassing simulated seeds and simulated nuts for the animal food industry and snacks for humans formed as an edible core surrounded by an interface layer and a readily removable non-food capsule. The edible core is described as gluten, starches, sugars, honey, alginate agar, casein, carrageenan, dextran, vitamins, minerals, nutrient polymers, polyethylene glycol, albumin and other proteins, glycerol, vegetable oils, fat, mineral oil, antioxidants, electrolytes, bacterial inhibitors, and mold inhibitors. The interface comprises an edible oil and a dry fine particulate, while the non-edible shell is a polymerizable substance coated upon the core.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,207,207 describes a coated confectionary having a crispy starch based center with a thin continuous rigid outer coating. The starch based center is comprised of flour, grain, kernel or starch selected from the group consisting of rice, corn, wheat, potato, sweet potato, sago, waxy maize, sorghum, millet, tapioca, soy bean and mixtures thereof, which is preferably puffed or expanded.
The health benefits of soy beans have been widely reported. Soy beans are an excellent agricultural source of dietary protein and fiber. Soy beans have lower saturated fat content than real nutmeats used in common snack foods. Soy beans are one of the few plant sources of omega-3 fatty acids. Consumption of soy bean products also has reported to help prevent coronary heart disease by reducing cholesterol levels, particularly “bad” LDL cholesterol levels. Soy bean product consumption may also play a role in preventing osteoporosis and in reduction of menopausal symptoms due to soy's rich content of phytoestrogens such as isoflavones. In addition, soy bean product consumption has been indicated to inhibit certain types of cancer and improve glucose tolerance. As such, the soy bean can be considered as a functional and a nutritional food source.
However, in the past, the considerable health potential and cost advantages of soy beans has not been significantly incorporated into simulated nut food products in particular. Although some of the above-mentioned prior processes may provide a formable film of artificial nutmeats, a need has remained for improvements whereby natural whole nuts might be simulated in taste, texture, shape, appearance, and so forth, using healthier ingredients yet without sacrificing taste properties.
The present process, which is both technically straightforward and attractive from a production cost standpoint, provides such improvements. Indeed, the present process makes it possible to prepare simulated whole nuts at reduced cost that are high quality replicates of their natural counterparts while also offering the health benefits of soy beans.